Working here every day, it has been exciting to see the number of new developments in the town of Ahoskie.

The new Walgreens is well under way as is the upcoming Abram’s on Memorial Drive. A Super Wal-Mart is also getting ready to being construction in town and it has been incredible to see how quickly those things have developed.

I think there’s a lot of credit to go around for all that has been accomplished, but certainly Ahoskie Town Manager Tony Hammond, the town board and the town workers deserve a good bit of the credit.

While much is coming, I hope this is just the tip of the iceberg. Ahoskie has the population and is a popular choice for shopping and really has the ability to be a destination if the right businesses locate here.

Hopefully, most of those places that come here will be new, but I believe with all my heart, we need one thing we already have – McDonalds.

Since my wife and I both work in Ahoskie, we eat at McDonalds almost every day. Mostly, we choose to eat there for breakfast, but we sometimes will go there at lunch and even occasionally for dinner.

The food is good if you like fast food – and I do – but the wait is incredible. It seems that no matter what time you get in your car and head out to McDonalds, there will be a line waiting for you.

On Friday morning – and it is one of many times – the line at the drive thru for McDonalds was coming out of the parking lot. I actually had to turn into the median and wait for access to the driveway. That wasn’t the first time it has happened and it likely won’t be the last.

It seems that people in Ahoskie love McDonalds and like to go there. I find it amazing a lot of times that people are willing to wait while six or seven cars go through the line before they take their turn. Many times I wait in that line myself.

The problem for McDonalds, however, is that many times I don’t. There are a lot of times when I want to eat there, but don’t because I don’t have time to wait or simply don’t have the patience. That means they are losing business.

I think it would behoove the mega billion dollar franchise to spend the money to add another location in Ahoskie. This town is certainly big enough to handle two McDonalds and there would be an easy fix. That would be to build it on the opposite end of town from the current location.

Already, there is Bojangles on the north end of town and it would be nice for there to be two or three other restaurants there and certainly a second McDonalds there would be fantastic.

It would not only be good for the town of Ahoskie, it would be good for McDonalds. I think they would do even more business in this town and make more money. That’s the name of the game for businesses and I think it would work here in Ahoskie.

 

Thadd White is Managing Editor of Roanoke-Chowan Publications. He can be reached via email at thadd.white@r-cnews.com or by telephone at 332-7211.